The preparedness movement has within it a subset which I will call "the revolutionists." These individuals tend to be politically right of center. They believe like minded people should prepare in part because of a belief in a coming revolution, which may be violent in nature.

Before you answer that, we should be clear - this isn't a belief held solely by some in the political right. There are many articles - such as here, here, here, and here, among others - pointing out that there are some on the political left who believe violent revolution is coming as well.

I hasten to add that we have constitution that is designed to thwart the risk of violent revolution. We regularly elect our president and Congressional representatives, as well as our state and local political leaders. We have a system in place to amend our constitution should the people desire to do so. These features were created to spare us the needless loss of life that violent revolution brings with it.

Despite such constitutional safeguards and provisions, people are angry - and they want change sooner rather than later. The success of presidential candidates Trump and Sanders is proof positive of the anger within the American electorate. We dismiss the anger of our fellow citizens at our own peril.

What are we in the preparedness movement - regardless of our political beliefs - supposed to think about the risk of violent revolution? Here are a few thoughts of mine:

Don't let the fear of violent revolution be your sole motivation to prepare. I may have found one Pivot Point that isn't a good one to use to motivate your preparedness efforts. Preparing solely out of fear of revolution will lead you to make preparedness decisions based upon an increased risk of armed conflict. Those decisions in turn will likely affect your overall ability to be better prepared for the wider spectrum of risks we face.

Building community is the antidote to violent conflict. If you are really concerned about this, get out of the echo chamber that are the social media and websites that perpetuate the discussion of the risk of violent revolution. Go volunteer at a homeless shelter or at a food bank. Get involved in your church. Seek out ways to meet people who are not like you in income, race, religion, and education. We are not as different as we are often led to believe we are. Strive to be a peacemaker, someone that others look to in times of conflict or trouble.

Don't be dismissive of those people who do believe violent revolution is a significant risk. I say this for two reasons. First, while I think the risk of revolution is low, I do think it is possible. Just because we are Americans doesn't mean we're immune from such human events. We are kidding ourselves to think otherwise.

Second, we are all seeking validation. Every one of us. Including me and you. Especiallypreppers, who are often tired of being ridiculed for our preparedness efforts to date. We don't have to agree with someone's fears in order to validate the individual as a rational person with legitimate concerns. When we belittle people because of their sincerely held beliefs, even when we adamantly disagree with them, we do nothing to further meaningful dialog with them.

Start educating yourself on the U.S. Constitution.I am doing this as well. And I have a law degree, which means I had to take courses on the subject and pass a number of exams demonstrating a basic understanding of the subject matter. And so if I need to brush up on my constitutional knowledge, most of you do as well. Understand the history behind it. Understand why it is necessary.

Do I think violent revolution is coming to the United States? I don't rule it out, just as actuaries for insurance companies don't rule it out either. But I don't dwell on it. And that's because:

....{I}n the long run, humans have proven to be incredibly resilient. Many who didn’t prepare will not perish. They will still be our countrymen after the crisis. Preparedness puts you in a position to be a leader in that inevitable rebuilding process, during which we can improve our communities and society. And being a leader means we have to set a good example now so that people will follow our example during and after a crisis.

I suspect many of you tire of hearing me say this. But I am going to say it again: execute the basics well.

Claude Werner is The Tactical Professor. He carries out his profession on a place on the Great Venn Diagram of Life where guns, tactics, data, training, and public policy merge into a spot occupied by few others. Never one to pass on an opportunity to use data to put things in perspective, he shared this piece on Facebook this evening, entitled "Prevent The Number 1 Cause Of Death."

It's not being shot by gang bangers or ISIS, folks. It's cardiovascular disease. From the link above:

"Cardiovascular disease (which includes Heart Disease, Stroke and other Cardiovascular Diseases) is the No. 1 cause of death in the United States, killing nearly 787,000 people in 2011.

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There are roughly 32,000 gun deaths per year in the United States. Of those, around 60% are suicides. About 3% are accidental deaths (between 700-800 deaths). About 34% of deaths (just over 11,000 in both 2010 and 2011) make up the remainder of gun deaths and are classified as homicides. According to FBI statistics, there were 12,664 homicides in the US in 2011.12,664 homicides vs. 787,000 deaths from cardiovascular disease."

For those of you who've read Pivot Points, you may recall my discussion of this very subject:

Despite these basic, inexpensive suggestions which would dramatically improve the outcomes of medical and trauma patients, our national narrative on the subject of protecting people from harm isn’t about teaching basic safety or first aid. Instead, we are far more likely to worry about more dramatic, often violent, dangers, which garner a lot of press attention and generate fear but which are more far difficult to solve on both the societal and individual level. If we were truly concerned about preserving life, we’d be more focused on teaching people first aid skills and how to use a fire extinguisher – skills that could be useful in the kinds of emergencies that we are most likely to face.

Speaking of the top causes of death in America, can you guess the top ten?

In a society that values preparedness, people put a priority on physical and mental health. Many of the causes of death you see above are brought about by lifestyle choices – lack of exercise, poor diet, alcohol and tobacco abuse. While it’s true we all have to die of something, we can increase our productivity to society if we engage in preventative care, sensible diet and exercise. An extended emergency with limited infrastructure will require a tremendous amount from you; that’s not the time to realize you are out of shape and dependent on medications to function.

(pg. 28-29).

Now, a confession here - I need to take my own advice and work on my cardio fitness and blood chemistry. As the teenager in my house likes to say, "the struggle is real." I like sweet stuff. And carbs. A lot. So even though I eat healthy much of the day, I regularly supplement it with less than healthy food choices.

That is bad. My diet is a bigger risk to me than a random act of violence. Yet I train and carry tools to deal with the latter, while not spending near enough time and effort dealing with the former.

Late this afternoon, a house in an adjoining neighborhood caught fire. It appears to be a total loss. Fortunately, no one was hurt. This is what I saw from across the greenbelt:

The greenbelt aspect of this is important; I'll explain why in a moment.

I saw the smoke near my house as I was out for a walk. Thinking the fire was in a nearby park, I started running that direction. I could hear fire trucks off in the distance, but I wasn't sure where they were headed.

I reached a vantage point where about 50 people were watching the fire. Many were taking pictures (some of the video taken by residents is being used on television station websites tonight), as did I. Social media has a way of creating citizen journalists, allowing us to see what's happening in our communities much more quickly than traditional media can provide.

Many people were wondering aloud what was going on, whether the yard around the house was on fire, whether there were firefighters in the house, and if there were any people in the house when the fire started.

I already knew the answers to all of those questions. But how?

The smart phone is good for a lot of things, and not just taking pictures of disasters. I have three separate police scanner apps on my iPhone. So while people were taking videos and texting pictures of the fire, this is what was on my iPhone:

I was listening to the firefighters' radio traffic (it helps that I served as a volunteer firefighter, so I could understand what it was they were saying). Turns out they had already checked the house for victims both with interior searches and by calling the local power company to determine whether there were any electricity-dependent residents living there. The fire was intense, and so the commander had pulled all firefighters out of the house to begin what is known as a defensive attack on the house - meaning they were just trying to keep the fire from spreading.

That's why the greenbelt in the picture is important. We're experiencing significant fire weather conditions here in Austin at the moment, and the greenbelt is basically a large canyon filled with dry vegetation and cedar trees - two things that burn hot and quick in a wildfire. Had the fire spread into that canyon (the house backed up to it), we would have a much larger emergency on our hands, endangering hundreds of homes and thousands of lives.

I'd like to share a few thoughts and observations as a prepper and former firefighter from this afternoon's event:

Pray for the family. Pray that they have the resources - financial, family and faith - to deal with the loss of their home.

Get an emergency radio scanner app for your smartphone. They are cheap if not free. I use 5-0 Radio, Emergency Radio, and Scanner Radio Deluxe. Between the three of them, I can usually get first responder, NOAA weather radio and ham radio repeater traffic for pretty much any town in America. Knowing what's happening around you can make a big difference in your decision making process during a neighborhood or regional emergency.

When was the last time you tested your family's ability to get out of the house in an emergency? We haven't done those drills in a while, but we will this Sunday. That includes fire ladder drills for the 18 year old from her upstairs bedroom window. It's been a while since she did it. As a little kid, she could go from her bed to safely on the ground from her upstairs room in under 90 seconds. Yes, I timed her. And yes, she received performance cash bonuses for beating service level objectives. (We call this "disaster dollars" in our house. Few things motivate kids more than cash.)

When was the last time you cleaned out your gutters from leaves and other debris? In a wildfire, these items can catch fire from hot blowing embers and set your house on fire.​​

Me on the roof between Christmas and New Year's a few weeks ago blowing out the gutters with the new backpack leaf blower my parents got me for Christmas. They object to me being on the roof with the leaf blower. They don't read this blog, so as long as you don't tell them, they won't know that I still do it.

As I am fond of telling you, "execute the basics well." Know how to respond to basic emergencies around your home, such as fires. Check the batteries in your smoke alarms. Check the charge of your fire extinguishers. Put a fire extinguisher in your vehicle. Practice your plan to get out of your house. Make sure your important documents are secured either on line away from home or in a fireproof box.

What are you doing to prepare for the risk of house fires? Leave your comments below.

Suffice it to say that we didn't get the below average temps and above average rainfall were were expecting here in Texas, but El Nino is credited with much of the rain we received in 2015 here in Texas. The bad news is that we may be transitioning back into a drought in the Lone Star state.

What is our take away from all of this? If we are working on our preparedness efforts, we need to be thinking about weather extremes in our planning. It's not like we get to vote between El Nino and La Nina. Although I'd love to see the political ads and debates between those two candidates.

Upcoming Preparedness Workshops and Seminars

I'm very excited to tell you that I am working with a friend to create some additional preparedness workshops and seminars in the Austin area for the second half of 2016. These are showing a lot of promise, with events being targeted at both beginning preppers as well as experienced ones.

I will have more information on these events in the coming weeks. I hope you'll plan on checking out these course offerings.

I like Stratfor. They do good work. But I think they totally punted here. As I summed up my takeaway of the piece for my Facebook friends:

Things ought not be bad but they are. Bank of Japan hit the panic button but when the EU banks did the same thing nothing bad happened. The Fed fixed it with QE but we don't know if they really did or not. Things may get worse, or they may not. People are overreacting, but they have reason to.

That's clear as mud to me.

People are scared. I get it. But let's remember a few things:

We have been here before. Think back to late 2007 and all of 2008 and the wild gyrations in the marketplace. We have seen this. We survived it. We know what this looks like. The American people should have a sense of pride in their ability to rebound as much as we have since then. Build upon the fact that you're still alive, still breathing, and still able to function. You survived a terrible economic collapse. Have confidence you can do this again.

It's not like we haven't been told this might happen. If you were caught off guard by this, I would respectfully suggest you start focusing on getting a wider variety of news in your daily information diet. Even CNBC has had guests on talking about this for some time now.

Think back to 2007. What would you have done differently then? Why not go and do those things now? I'm able to sleep much better these days in large part because I dramatically reduced my exposure to the stock market in the last 30 days. That's because I learned my lesson from 2008 - when we start to have these crazy days in the markets, it means the markets are not healthy. For me personally, it means I have no business being in them.

I know the financial advisers out there would tell me I sold at the wrong time and that I should buy and hold. If I can't sleep and obsess over buying and holding when the markets are uncertain, it's not a good place for me to be. You go ahead with your strategy. I will go with mine.

What is your plan? If you don't have a plan, are you going to make one? See number 3 above. Come up with an action plan to manage your finances. Think about the fear many of us felt when massive layoffs started occurring. What would you have done differently in 2007 if you knew that prospect was coming around the corner?

What action can you take, right now, to hedge against any downturn in the economy or your job situation? Reduce expenses? Build up a cushion of cash? Build up your professional and occupational network? Improve your work habits to be a better employee? Refi your house to a lower payment or rate?

So what am I doing?

Greatly reduced exposure but to a very small number of stocks. I stuck with the stocks in my portfolio that were going up when the rest of my portfolio was going down.

Making capital preservation a top priority. This, too, shall pass. And when it does, it's good to have capital ready to go to put to work.

Looking for some less conventional ways to get returns in a down market. Look at stocks that are doing really well so far this year. Or ETFs. Or other investments.

Continuing to look for ways to reduce my expenses and save money.

Continuing to look for ways to get the message out about preparedness. I am working on some very exciting ideas with a friend to deliver some high quality preparedness seminars this summer and fall.

Making sure my own affairs are in order. There's always something to be done - around the house, to our vehicles, in our preparedness plans. Look for opportunities to shore up your own preparedness.

What are you doing in response to the market turmoil? Leave a comment below.

After a seven month odyssey with the City of Austin Codes Department, our plans to build our next home were approved.

We are looking to implement a number of features of interest to us, as anyone building a custom home would. One of the main features of which I am most appreciative is our decision to build with resiliency in mind.

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The beginnings of our new home, which I am calling "Fort Kendel."

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The Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety (IBHS) has a program by which you can have your new or retrofitted construction certified as disaster resistant. Their FORTIFIED program is "a superior building standards program that uses scientific research from the field and at the IBHS Research Center to make residential and commercial construction better withstand severe weather." Homeowners can achieve different levels of certification in the program, which translates to discounts on insurance premiums.

Building with resilience in mind is often cheaper than doing it in a retrofit. So we're doing our best to try to do it right on the front end. We hope this will lead to us having a safe home for decades to come.

What will it cost? I'm working with our builder to determine the "delta" - the cost difference between simply meeting code and meeting IBHS standards. Given the fact we do not have to build to hurricane specifications, we do not believe that it will be a significant cost addition. And given the fact it will reduce our insurance premiums, the extra expense will hopefully be recaptured quickly and actually save us money over a long period of time.

Aside from the life safety and cost savings that resilient buildings provide, it also allows the occupants to be better able to help others in times of disaster. If your home is still on line after a disaster, then you're not having to tend to your own problems. That enables you to be involved in the effort to help others.

Today, I spoke to two of the three classes taking the first ever class on Disaster Readiness at Westwood High School. Each class lasted 90 minutes, so I got to spend a fair amount of time with the students.

Each class has about 20 kids, most of whom are upper classmen. Their teacher is a registered nurse with an interest in preparedness as well.

I started by asking the kids why they chose to take that particular class. Answers were not really forthcoming (remember, these are teenagers and it was a Monday morning.) After I had them empty their pockets and backpacks of any items that might be helpful in an emergency, I gave the most prepared student $10 cash. At that point, it was easier to maintain their attention for the rest of the class.

For the first few minutes, I drove home some basic overall concepts about preparedness:

All you have on you is all you have.

The odds are small, but the stakes are high.

It pays to be a winner.

Execute the basics well.

You're crazy until you're not.

Good preparedness is good citizenship.

After the more holistic discussion of preparedness, I led the students through a table top exercise. They were divided into groups of four or five, and each group selected a team name and a spokesperson. I gave them a rather difficult scenario: their field trip bus ran off the road in a rural part of the state, late at night, with 40 students, three parents and two teachers, landing on its right side. Students then had to work the problem, addressing new facts and problems as they were doled out over time.

One of the more interesting observations was that the kids were not hesitant to make decisions with imperfect information. When I've led adults in the corporate world through similar exercises, I regularly get the response that "I can't make a decision because I don't have all the facts." Working in the disaster response environment means you are making lots of decisions without all of the facts. That didn't seem to bother the students today.

I was surprised at how well the students in the class intuitively knew what to do: prioritizing, using those with emergency skills to do the complex tasks while assigning simpler tasks to others on the bus who were not injured, assigning other adults to deal with the inconsolable mom that was on the field trip. One of the challenges we discussed was how to interact with adults who might not realize these young responders have more training and skills than the average adult.

I will do one more presentation to the third class of students taking the course later this week. And then on Friday, I will help lay out a vision for the Webb School Preparedness Initiative at the school's upcoming Board of Trustees meeting. This is something that I've worked on for about five years; I'm glad to see how much positive response it's getting right now.

I spend a fair amount of time in Pivot Points discussing the need to train young people in disaster readiness and response. This is essential in building a culture of preparedness. I hope you will consider you own effort to help support preparedness initiatives for our kids.